Law Firm Marketing - Become a Customer Centric

The Customer Experience

Receive exceptional service is always an unforgettable experience. You can make a person feel appreciated. And news of exceptional service is spreading rapidly. He spoke with friends and family and even the praise of strangers. You can transcend the ordinary and to assume an almost mythical. This is particularly true when normal things are done in an extraordinary way.

Years ago, I had to fly to Bangkok on a business trip. After a long taxi ride in rush hour traffic trying, I finally checked into my hotel, tired and hungry. I left my luggage in the room and went downstairs to get some dinner. An hour later, when I returned, I found my bag well packed - fold shirts, pants hangers, ties closely scattered along the racks. Almost immediately, I started to relax. I involuntarily a sigh of relief.

Then I looked in the bathroom and saw something I will never forget. The items of my kit for the whole night were arranged in an orderly fashion from? Basin, and someone had actually cleaned my hairbrush. All locks of hair had been removed and the bristles shining. But the coup de grace was this: Resting in the center of the bristles was a lovely white petal.
After more than ten years, I can still see this picture. This experience - this unexpected gesture that went beyond exceptional service - has left me with a new understanding of what it means putting the customer first.

When I came home and asked people in Thailand, I always told them that the small white petal on my hairbrush. Today, when I think of big hotels, I think of the Oriental Hotel. And 'the standard by which to judge all other hotels.

In the universe of firms, only a few consistently achieve extraordinary levels of service. Studies have shown that companies that achieve these levels share some fundamental values ​​and organizational characteristics.

A service of Marketing

There is a fundamental distinction between marketing a product and the marketing of a service. The products are tangible. They either work as represented, or do not. Products can be returned or exchanged. We can touch and feel a product before you decide to buy it, this is rarely the case for a service.

The services are designed to be lived, not ordered from catalogs. Serv ices have a deeply personal nature and our response to them is often emotionally driven. A service of relation-ship, including a relationship of professional service provider for the challenge of being an expert in the service of citizens.

Think of the ways buyers perceive the "value" in general. When we buy products, we rely primarily on objective criteria. For products such as shampoo and stereo, the determination of the target value is quite simple. A large bottle of shampoo products offers more of a little, so we are justified in paying more for the big one. A stereo system that has multiple functions is said to contain more value than one that has fewer features. Product characteristics, quality and quantity are all critical factors in determining value. Service, however, is much more nebulous - and is therefore much more difficult to define and to measure.

Service is a process, not an end

One reason service is so difficult to measure because it is so subjective. And 'experiential - we can hear and see, but the definition is different. Maybe it's a bit 'like the one the Supreme Court wrote about pornography: It may be difficult to define but we know it when we see it.

Very large companies - those with legendary status - are always striving to reach higher levels of service to their customers. Central to these companies is the understanding that the service is a never ending process driven by a specific mentality. These companies know that while they must always strive to reach higher levels of service, they can never assume that they have reached the highest level. There is always a higher level to fight for, and standing still squelches the pursuit of excellence. Or a company continues to achieve higher levels of service, or has abandoned the pursuit. There is no middle way.

Most companies are focused on the needs and desires of their partners. For the service-driven companies, the opposite is true - not because these companies have partners who enjoy a greater sense of purpose, but because they have a greater sense of business intelligence. For them, everything revolves around the customer. And as you might expect, the benefits have a way to return to the partners. Thanks to continuous innovation at the highest levels of customer service builds the kinds of returns that maintain a flourishing society.

There is no quick and easy recipe for becoming a service-driven company. There is no secret formula to meet - and exceed - the needs of your customers. But one of the best ways to find out how your company can provide exceptional service to your customers is, strangely, one of the most often ignored: Listening to what your customers need - to be client-centric to instead of firm-centric.

You can be confident that your best customers were attracted by the size of your company - for its size and its range of specialties. But the truth is that not what you think you're giving that counts, but rather what customers are experiencing that matters most.

The emotional side

Provide a level of fame of customer service requires attention and be sensitive to the emotional side of legal issues.

Lawyers who pay attention to subjective experiences of the clients are able to expand the scope of legal and practical options available to their customers, which can cause lawyers become better problem solvers.
Old marketing models are based on a series of false assumptions about what influences people's decisions. Now that we know more about how the mind works, we have a unique opportunity to apply this knowledge to the goal of meeting the real needs of our clients in conflict with the needs we will just assume they have.
In our legal education, we are taught the importance of words and logic. Even in the emotional context of the evidence, most lawyers - and very in tune with the emotional reactions of juries - ultimately, almost always rely on the persuasive power of logic, the words and reason to win their cases.

Today, neuroscience is providing important insights into the ways people interpret the information and the degree of "thinking" is used to influence our decisions. The emphasis on the words of lawyers is based largely on the false assumption that most of our thinking takes place in our conscious mind. In fact, recent research reveals that brain science is just the opposite: 95 percent of our way of thinking actually happens on a subconscious level.

Our memories, associations and emotions occur just below the surface of our awareness. In response to stimuli, our minds go to work hard at breakneck speed, networking, sharing, distribution, linking, shuffling and reshuffling the memories, images and thoughts before the first words of reaction ever leave our lips. Ironically, the words we speak are literally an afterthought.

How can this knowledge be applied to the way we communicate and deal with our customers? We want our customers to assume that, for the most part, rational and deliberate decisions. That is, they consciously contemplating the relative merits of a choice, assign a value to each criterion and then convert this information into what we call a judgment. We would certainly like to think that is how we make decisions ourselves! But the fact is that most decisions are taken at the intuitive, emotional level.

If the answer to a topic in the classroom or for a business marketing campaign, even the smartest people to develop their decisions under the surface of their conscious mind. In fact, the words and logic have more to do with justifying a decision that is the basis of one.

Consider how clients choose law firms. They may think that they were driven by a logic - going with a "large company" or choosing a lawyer on the basis of "professional conduct", but they are actually using their intuition to make a very subjective-decision.

When lawyers learn to think emotionally, find new ways to communicate with their customers in decision making. Therefore, providing a level of fame of customer service will increase the quality of personal attention given to the emotional side of problem solving. Lawyers who pay attention to subjective experiences of the clients are able to offer a wide range of practical and legal options for their clients to consider.

"We see the same problems over and over again," a partner in a small practice, Cleveland said. "When we know that our customers are going through a painful period of their lives, our work is often to help them connect the dots on a personal level, this forces us to think emotionally -. To become more empathetic - so we can get in minds of our customers. But the truth is, even in the context of the law, the customer's decision process is driven by emotion more strongly than any other single factor. "
Emotion is a stronger influence on decision making, but the words are still in second place, even if it's a common assumption that we think in words.

While words play a central role in communicating thoughts, rarely use them to think. Using words is just too slow, and the language does not contain enough bandwidth to accommodate the complexity of our think-processes. Feelings can be both instantaneous and complex so that words can not be.

The law firm that recognizes the important role that emotions play in decision-making process of its customers and adjusts its service will find new opportunities to provide customers with higher levels of service.

The sharing of knowledge

Professional service marketing is both intensive and knowledge-intensive nature of relationship. For law firms, in particular, knowledge sharing and relationship building are two elements essential to provide a quality legal, and they need to work together. The development of customer relationships is the sharing of knowledge so as to build confidence and trust.
Unfortunately, many lawyers are reluctant to share their knowledge with customers. Some prefer to create an aura of mystery around their work, forcing customers to see them as necessary - a particularly effective technique for a lawyer who has already been successful in solving a problem before a client's legal. However, this approach almost always results in customers feeling insecure and vulnerable, and leads to the kind of trust or loyalty in the long run, customer returns.

Marketing is a process of empathy. Requires that the lawyers step back and become an observer, the lawyer-client relationship. In doing so, we must detach ourselves from our point of view and old ways of thinking. For most of us, this requires a change of perspective.

Neuroscientists tell us that live in our minds to explore new ways of thinking - seeing the relationships between things previously thought were unrelated and the search for commonality between different disciplines such as language and art or science and philosophy.

The same can be said of the kind of change in mindset required to link the emotions with the marketing and commercialization with identity. These new combinations are powerful and effective, but part of the challenge in us-tion of them is to first get our minds around them.
The entire range of our thought, the depth of our perception, it said to change when it challenges us to understand the totality of something, rather than just our narrow part of it.

The thought is as strong as our lawyers. But the real strength of mind depends on our willingness to understand the different types of thinking to be able to shift and broaden our perspectives and to consider new approaches to problem solving.
Challenge our minds is to break the boundaries of our narrow linear and categorical logic. We need to look beyond the world of opposites - things that are true or false, but not both. In short, we need to stop and take a fresh look at what we do and why we do it. If we hope to provide the kind of high level of service that distinguish us from competitors and create a new level of customer satisfaction, we need to see the needs of customers in ways we have not seen before.

This, of course, requires that we develop new ways of thinking. Means leaving the comfort zone of mind - not a pleasant proposal for lawyers who have spent years to learn to think in that area. But leaving is essential if we are committed to the full range of market-structuring process.

On the basis of service Character

Action that is out of character is perceived as authentic and therefore predictable. Ideally, customers will know their lawyers as people who can count in almost all circumstances. Lawyers who can count on being responsible, careful, caring, sensitive, hon-east, hardworking and reliable attract new customers and retain existing ones.
The development of a law firm based on these types of values ​​inspired is what drives business growth and promotes prosperity. However, the character can not be imposed from outside. It must come from the core of leadership of the company and grow outward. That's why building relationships is so important for our work.

Many law firms are reluctant to invest in education and personal development. Mentoring is too often limited to the development of technical skills such as research and writing. Lawyers in developing communication and character-building skills have been devalued, and this reflects the degree of resignation and cynicism that exists in our profession today. Ironically, the same companies that do not value personal development, I ask why they are experiencing a dramatic decline in customer satisfaction.

The Trust Factor

Customers do not see you as someone they trust? As someone who is honest with them and acting with integrity? Are you seen as someone who really cares about their welfare?

What we do for our customers reveals not only our immediate intentions, but also our character.
Customers measure our service in the first place - but not entirely - by our actions. If our actions are perceived to arise naturally from our character, then we are perceived as sincere and trustworthy. Otherwise, that is too often the case, may seem manipulative and calculating.

Customers trust their lawyers if they believe in the truth of the character of lawyers. For lawyers to learn how to serve their character requires time, effort and a commitment to personal development. Despite popular opinion, the character can be learned and developed, especially if it is en-forced by the corporate culture and leadership. Thus, the term character education.
For most companies, however, the development of communication skills in their lawyers is not just a priority. In fact, some companies believe that it is not necessary if only to take quality people.

"When we recruit, we look for young people who have a strong sense of purpose," said a partner in a study of the East Coast. "For our company, this maturity means, manners and common sense. Of course, we want the best minds, but we refuse to compromise on the character. We will not give an of-fer unless we believe in our gut that the person can really grow into being a partner. "

Lawyers who are truly appreciated by their clients to develop client relation-ships that grow in alliances. At the other end of the spectrum there are lawyers who see their job as the opening and closing files. They exist in a virtual dead zone - a place where the personal side of the customer experience is not relevant, the customer having been reduced to just another "fact" in a number of issues that belong to a file that constitute a unit income.

Somewhere along the line, these lawyers have come to believe that until there is sufficient flow of revenue, fixed and changing the external problems (under hammer) will be sufficient to maintain control service in decline. Meanwhile, the partners maintain partnership and I hope no one notices that they do not have a clue about where the company is going or how it will end.

Without a moral center, there can be no intention or direction of the group. Instead, there is only the operating system "organization" on cruise control, applying corrections to the surface points of contact problem where the service and performance fell to unacceptable levels.

Responsibility

Consider what it means to be responsible for your customers. When customers place their trust in you, what it means in particular - to you and your business?

The responsibility can be seen as the process by which a company succeeds or fails to make and keep its promises. What kinds of promises? The types that come from the values ​​inspired by the company - those who come from the moral center of society - the place "V".

A partner had a very clear sense of what its study promises: "Our customers count on us to be reliable, honest and totally committed to their interests all the time, every time."

Take time to identify only three character traits that customers can count on your company to deliver. As an experiment, list these characteristics on the card and ask a few other people at your company to come up with their list. You will be amazed at how the answers vary from person to person.
Consider this: if the company can not agree on what they should expect their clients, chances are, as well as their customers. This is exactly why a company should define for themselves what it means to serve its customers. Only with a clear understanding of its values ​​inspired by a firm can hope to provide customers with a consistent experience an exceptional service which will long remember ....